{"id":4159,"date":"2025-10-23T03:43:17","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T08:43:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/?p=4159"},"modified":"2025-10-23T03:43:17","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T08:43:17","slug":"bacterial-help-cacti-grow-on-rocks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/bacterial-help-cacti-grow-on-rocks\/","title":{"rendered":"Bacteria Help Cacti Grow on Rocks?"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Photograph = Baja California, Alan Harper)<\/p>\n

Introduction<\/h2>\n

Cacti can grow in very poor, fast-draining substrates\u2014even on bare lava. In those places, both water and nutrients are scarce. How do these plants get what they need?<\/p>\n

The Details<\/h3>\n

The giant card\u00f3n (Pachycereus pringlei<\/em>) often grows on old lava flows in Baja California, where available nitrogen, phosphorus, and other minerals are limited. Greenhouse work shows that bacteria living on cactus roots can help seedlings do more with less. When card\u00f3n seedlings were inoculated with rhizoplane bacteria and grown in pulverized igneous rock mixed with perlite, they fixed nitrogen, dissolved phosphate, and mobilized minerals from the substrate. Inoculated plants grew well for twelve months with no added fertilizer, while uninoculated plants lagged or died. The growing medium itself ended up with more plant-available nutrients than it started with.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cAll inoculated plants, regardless of the bacterial species, grew much better and were more able to extract essential inorganic minerals from the pulverized rock \u2026 than plants that had not been inoculated.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Some strains even improved survival in perlite alone, suggesting that the microbes can support seedlings under extremely lean conditions. These results come from controlled conditions, but the basic idea is clear: the right bacteria on cactus roots can unlock nutrients from rock particles and help explain how these plants establish on seemingly nutrient-poor sites.<\/p>\n

Additional Reading:\u00a0Growth Promotion of Cactus Seedlings on Rocks<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Pachycereus <\/a>
Pachycereus pringlei, Amante Darmanin <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Pachycereus <\/a>
Pachycereus pringlei, Amante Darmanin <\/div> <\/div>
\"Pachycereus <\/a>
Pachycereus pringlei, Amante Darmanin <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Pachycereus <\/a>
Pachycereus pringlei, Max Bolotin <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Photograph = Baja California, Alan Harper) Introduction Cacti can grow in very poor, fast-draining substrates\u2014even on bare lava. In those places, both water and nutrients are scarce. How do these plants get what they need? The Details The giant card\u00f3n (Pachycereus pringlei) often grows on old lava flows in Baja California, where available nitrogen, phosphorus, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4162,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,1],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-4159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cacti","category-other-topic","tag-biology"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/baja-california-alan-harper.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4159"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6987,"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4159\/revisions\/6987"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}